Frank's quiz - now 25% more stupiderer for gud 'Merkins!

It's been brought to my attention that there have been complaints that my Wednesday night quiz is too challenging for the masses here in George W. Bush's America. A dumbing-down request has been made.

The irony here is that the people reading this blog are not the complainers. I know that. It's a shame that those of you who like a good quiz have to read this, but I have to explain to you why the quiz will be changing. I suspect the complainers are the sad barstool jockeys who add nothing to the quiz but loudmouthed witless heckling and extra background noise.

Setting aside for a moment the issue of complaining about a free entertainment service provided by a bar which is giving out free certificates for goods and on top of which I'm handing out free prizes, even for last place [!], we're left with the issue of the quiz itself. Is it that hard?

Let's review: 6 rounds, 51 questions.

The first round of 10 is the Easy Round, in which I already basically give away 9 or 10 points in an attempt to make the poor teams feel better about themselves. You've been doing something wrong to this point in life if you don't get 8 right. Seriously. Recently I've asked about Gilligan's Island and the number of quarts in a gallon. It's the Special Olympics of trivia - "Yay, we all win!"

The second round is Before/After. It's a 50/50 proposition; you can sit at home right now, not having heard a single question yet, guess randomly 10 times and the Law of Averages says you'll get 4-6 right. Try it out; pick 10 answers this moment, come in Wednesday and stick with them. I'm handing you a good 10 points, people.

Thus far we've covered 20 questions, and you can't possibly answer less than about 13 of them correctly if you have a command of English, grew up in this country and can grip a pen.

The Speed Round is third. That's a slight bit trickier, but the answers are always things like names of states or major newspapers or members of City Council (in your own city mind you), or other categories of common nouns with which adults are generally familiar. There aren't only 10 correct answers in the Speed Round, there are usually 12-20! Getting all 10 correct is tough, but if you can't hit 3-5 answers out of 12-20 vaild ones most weeks I have to conclude that, again, you have been pissing your intellectual life away, and this really isn't my fault.

Consider this past week's question about the states that have legalized medical marijuana. There are 11 correct answers, you pick 10 states out of 50. If you even write the names of any 10 states in a totally random fashion, your odds of not getting any correct are about the same as your winning the lottery.

To this point I've essentially handed you somewhere in the neighborhood of 33 points just for showing up.

The Subject Round is one I announce ahead of time! I tell you what the subject is days in advance on this blog and if you have the slightest bit of interest in winning you can study up. Even though these are 4-point questions I always make sure at least a couple are gimmies so that people don't get turned off. That's 8 more free points even if you don't study the subject! That's a good 41 points for being baseline literate.

Granted, the fifth and sixth rounds are hard, If I didn't have these rounds the non-knuckle-draggers (if you're reading this, that's you) who come to the bar specifically to play the quiz wouldn't show up. The market for growing this quiz and for any decent pub quiz in Center City are the people who can't be bothered with 30 or 40 unchallenging questions.

The Secret Theme Round has a... wait for it... Secret Theme which is a bit of a riddle/non-linear brain teaser. No, it's not always simple. It's not supposed to be simple, it's a riddle with bonus points for the teams that should win on merit. The hard questions are hard because they're worth 6 points each. This lets the more savvy people beat the less savvy people in a game that's designed around being savvy. It's comparable to letting the faster people win track events. Once a week there should be a reward in some aspect of American life for not being a "moran."

I'm keeping the same format, I'll just notch down the intellectual level. This is the funny thing to me; the people who complain about losing the harder quiz are going to lose easier ones by wider margins! The mob has spoken; enjoy the consequences. Here's a question: if it's embarrassing to get blown out of a decently challenging quiz, what does it say about you if your ass gets smoked in an easy one? Will people feel better if Group W kicks your ass by 70 points instead of 40? Because that's what's going to happen, I guarantee it.

Here's a link to the best thing Ned "Carlos" Mencia ever did, the Dee Dee Dee Song. Toward the end there the lyric captures the zeitgeist of America:

This test is too hard! (So they lower the standards)
I’m not good at sports! (So they give them all trophies)
My dad used to spank me (So they lower the standards)
I’m too fat for this seat (So they widen the standards)
They say no cause I’m black (So they lower the standards)
They say no cause I’m white (So they lower the standards)
They say no cause I’m Asian (So they lower the standards)
No habla ingles (So we all become Spaniards)
And you wake up one day and you don’t have the skills
To get a better job so you’re stuck on the grill
You’re wondering why Julio took your job
But you forget to see, you’re as dumb as a knob
Your ass is too fat to get out of the house
While you’re eating more food trying to figure it out
So they outsource your job to some guy named Habib
Cause he works harder than you and he’s got 5 degrees
And you’re asking yourself how could this happen to me
I’ll tell you why, homie! Cause you’re….dee dee dee